How the Sports World Hit a Home Run and Forever Changed the Way We Watch Sports

Photo Credit: Curved View

Imagine not being able to watch your favorite sports team play every day. Not being able to see your favorite player catch an amazing touchdown pass or hit a walk-off home run. Unable to watch the Super Bowl, which has been the most popular television broadcast year after year, with all of your family and friends. Disconnected from the sports world that you've become so attached to.

Less than a century ago, this is what people had to deal with. Back then, of course, sports weren't as prevalent in society as they are today, with fewer teams for each sport and some of the present day sports not even invented yet or not yet reaching their present day format. But in order for those Americans to know what was happening with their favorite team or player back in the 1920's and 1930's, they needed to tune into a radio or get information about the game telegraphed to them or someone they knew. 

The first televised sporting event was a college basketball game between Columbia and Princeton in 1939. NFL games were first shown on television beginning in 1939 and NHL games shortly after in 1940. People now had the television to touch bases on how their favorite team was doing and they were able to see what was happening during a game from the comfort of their own homes. 

What really revolutionized the broadcasting of sporting events was the debut of ESPN in 1979. A cable channel dedicated solely to sports was created, earning the distinction of the "Worldwide Leader in Sports." Now fans would knew exactly where to go to get their sports news and headlines, distinguishing ESPN as a cornerstone of any sports fan for the years to come. 

Photo Credit: Gunaxin Gadgets

The advent of the internet and social media also impacted the way people watch sports and get sports news. Scores and video highlights could now be looked up online, without actually having to watch the game live to understand what happened. Events and news were also posted on social media the instant they happened, keeping viewers and fans very much connected to what was actually happening in the game through social media. The other big innovation was the ability to stream live games on your laptop or mobile smartphones, allowing you to bring live sports coverage anywhere you went. 

Therefore, my thesis would be similar to this: Advances in technologies throughout the 20th century, especially changing the way people watch television, drastically impacted the way people watched sports from having to watch games in black and white on a small television set to being able to watch live sporting events from devices that fit in your pockets, demonstrating a significant shift in the way that Americans watch sports.

For my essay and TED Talk, I would be focusing mainly on the time period from 1939 until today to demonstrate the clear and well-defined differences between watching sports in these different eras. I would use some of the points that I mentioned previously in this blog post, but I would also describe how watching sports has impacted our society and our culture over time as sports have become more and more involved in our daily lives. I would also talk about the future of sports broadcasting and some exiting new technologies that will further alter the way we watch sports.

Here are some of my preliminary sources: 

"History of Sports Broadcasting." Be on Air Network, Miami, Ohio, Illinois and Colorado Media
     Schools, beonair.com/history-of-sports-broadcasting/. Accessed 19 Oct. 2017.
"How Technology Has Changed the Way We Watch Sports." NGCIT, 19 Nov. 2015, ncgit.com/
     how-technology-has-changed-the-way-we-watch-sports/. Accessed 19 Oct. 2017.
Ozanian, Mike. "Virtual Reality Will Be a Paradigm Shift for Sports Viewing." Forbes, Forbes
    Media, 25 Nov. 2015, Virtual Reality Will Be A Paradigm Shift For Sports Viewing.     
    Accessed 19 Oct. 2017.
Tubbs, William. "How Technology Has Changed the Way We Watch Sports." Innovation
     Enterprise, channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/how-technology-has-
     changed-the-way-we-watch-sport. Accessed 19 Oct. 2017.
Weintraub, Robert. "The Future of Sports Television." Slate, Slate Group, 31 Oct. 2008,
     www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2008/10/the_future_of_sports_television.html.   
     Accessed 19 Oct. 2017.

Our Ever-Changing Views on Climate Change and Communicating Information

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Climate change deserves the spotlight right now.

It's worked its way to the forefront of political debate, it's becoming increasingly prevalent in our daily conversations, and our views on the topic of climate change have changed drastically over the past 100 years.

Photo Credit: NASA Global Climate Change

The first option for a paradigm shift that I would like to study for this unit is how our view of climate change has changed over time. When the industrial revolution began in the late 1700s and early 1800s, no one cared what these new machines that people were inventing released into the atmosphere. No one at the time had the scientific knowledge or the foresight to realize that the machines that were being created would immensely alter our climate in the years to come.

These fossil fuel burning devices and activities, such as the internal combustion engine and the increase in the use of coal as a source of power, spread quickly throughout our society. Our economy and our infrastructure were built off of fossil fuels, and many of the remnants from this system linger today. But there's been a noticeable shift in the way people view the way we're treating our environment. Now there's an increasing amount of scientific evidence to prove that humans are contributing to global warming and directly impacting the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This has led to and will continue to lead to negative consequences for our planet moving forward. Therefore, a large majority of scientists and people have shifted their views to support the fact that we need to cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions in order to ensure the sustainability of our planet.

Photo Credit: WikiMedia Commons

A second paradigm shift that I would consider studying for this unit would be how we have changed the way we receive information. Not too long ago, people used to eagerly await for the newspaper to arrive at their doorstep so that they could read the news that day. People would also tune into the radio in their homes for the latest news updates. But, in today's society, we hardly look anywhere else besides our smartphones for information throughout the day. All the news we could ever want is instantaneous and at our fingertips.

Photo Credit: The Telegraph

This drastically changes the way that media and companies communicate information to the general public. Now, their messages must be communicated through different means than through which they were communicated 50 years ago. Social media and websites have now become the main sources for information. And there's not only changes in the medium that we receive information through but also changes in how much information we receive. We now receive five times as much information every day as we did in 1986. I think it would be interesting to explore how this influx of information has both positively and negatively impacted our daily lives.

What's Your Story? The Secret Behind Crafting a Great Speech

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How will you be remembered? 

It's the question we often find ourselves pondering: what will my legacy be when I'm no longer around? What will others recall about my character and my actions?

Similarly, it's imperative that we use this same approach when crafting speeches, and some of the best talks that I've heard were the ones that I still remember to this day.

How did the authors of these amazing talks make their speeches so memorable?

People quickly become inundated by messages and speeches, whatever form they might be in, on a daily basis. The best speeches are the ones that stick with us and stand out in the clutter of all of these words and information. I believe that the best, and simplest, way to make a speech be remembered by the audience is by telling a story that provides a real-life example of the speaker's message. Using anecdotes engages the audience in a way that a slideshow or statistics cannot do - the listeners can clearly see how the message of the talk can be applied to their own, personal lives. And when an audience is engaged, for instance by being able to easily connect what is being said by the speaker to their everyday lives, they are more likely to retain the information being presented and remember the speech in the future.

Stories help us remember the key points of a talk because they give us a connection to our everyday lives, so whenever when we think about this topic in our lives, we're able to draw the connection between our life and the speech. 

Stories also help out during a speech because it's a lot easier for the speaker to remember and talk about what happened in their personal lives than it is for them to remember statistical evidence and facts. It feels more natural when the speaker uses stories, making the speech feel like a conversation with the audience members and relating what is being said directly to their lives. 

One of the best TED Talks that I've ever listened to was given by Angela Lee Duckworth about grit and determination. Not only was the topic of this speech one that I personally found interesting, but Angela begins her speech with a story that I could connect to. She talks about how, as a 7th-grade math teacher, she could conclude that the students who worked harder and possessed more grit were the ones that were more successful. This story from Angela's personal experiences helps the audience to connect to her main point that grit is the best determiner of success, not IQ or test scores. This story also helps the listener to remember her speech in the future, since the listener can relate what Angela's story was about to their everyday lives. 

Another great TED Talk that I've watched multiple times over the years and always remember is by Josh Kaufman, who talks about how you can learn any skill in 20 hours. He argues against the common thought that it takes 10,000 hours to learn a new skill, and says that being okay at a new skill only requires 20 hours. He backs his claim by providing an example from his own life of the 20 hours rule. John wanted to learn to play the ukulele, so he put 20 hours into learning it from scratch and he performs a short piece on his ukulele at the end of his talk that gives the listener a real-life story that they can apply to their lives. They can see how the 20 hours rule that he proposed in his speech actually works in the real world.

Storytelling, I believe, is what separates the average talks from good or great ones. A speaker that engages their audience through stories that the listener can relate to, gives their listener a better chance of remembering what their speech was about a week, a month, and even a year from when the speech was given. 

In short, if you want to be remembered by others for what you say, connect it to the listeners' lives through a simple, yet effective, story.